Three times a week, I skate at 8am, before going to work. A typical day with morning skating would be somewhat like this:
6am -> alarm rings... Actually it is really not yet 6 since my clock is something like 8 minutes fast... So I hit snooze - it will ring again in 10 minutes (that is, if I didn't hit the wrong button!).
I get up early because my body needs about 2 hours to be awake enough to skate! Another skater friend of mine insists that it should be 3 hours, not 2. She really did wake up at 5am for her 8am test (and she was staying with me that night! ARGH!!!)
I make tea, and, if hungry, get something to eat. I turn on my computer to check mail (and reply only if urgent, since I don't have much time). Then I go about doing stuff around the house. Laundry, or ironing, or cleaning the floor, or even making dinner for the evening...
Yes, that's right, dinner! I have one of those wonderful vacuum pots, which keep food hot for eons... It is almost like having a wireless slow cooker. So I start a soup or a stew, get it boiling, stick it into the vacuum pot and it will complete cooking while I'm skating. Brilliant!
Oh, of course I have to get some stretching in too. Ever since my back problems two years ago, I have lost faith in the "no warm up needed" theory. Not that I believed in it to begin with, but I had gotten away with it often enough, when I'm rushed for time! (Yah, I know, that is terrible!) So these days, I stretch in the morning before I go to the rink.
At about 7:20 and I get changed into my skating clothes, and pack a change of normal clothes for work. I try to get out of the apartment by 7:40, but I invariably run late. This time of the year, it takes just 10 minutes for me to drive to the rink in the morning - and I do have the car these days. If I take a bus, I would have to leave before 7:30. If the public schools are in session, it would take at least 15 minutes by car!
I run into the rink, with 5 minutes to jump into my skates and onto the ice! I skate for an hour. Or rather, I plan to, though I'd often give myself another 10 minutes more, 'cos I need to do that spiral sequence again... or I need to try that variation in the layback... or I forgot to work on flying camel... or... some other thing!
Then, I jump off the ice, out of my boots and into my "normal" clothes. Time to rush off to work...
I am not at liberty to disclose what I do at work, so just imagine it is a typical day of work, with issues to settle, meetings to go to, things to plan for...
It is often way past 7pm by the time I get home, usually almost 8. That is, if I'm not headed back to the rink to coach in the evenings, or taking some course, or meeting with friends. Finally, some time to relax a bit... dinner, TV, surf the net for news (you can't imagine how entertaining the net is these days!), check mail, chat with friends... Seasonally, I would also be cutting music, choreographing programs, thinking up of incredible variations for IJS, or worrying about TBISC or SISA events...
So there... If you have read this far, you must be totally bored... but oh well, whatever!
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